Hello everybody!

First of all, thank you all so much for the invaluable advice, tips and ideas you share everyday. I have been visiting this forum on a daily bases ever since I started thinking about becoming a VA/VBM, and this forum has helped me a lot! (Reading about your experiences also helps me tremendously especially when a moment of remorse comes - and I am sure you have felt it, too, at some point of your independent VA career...)

However, allow me to introduce myself to you...

My name is Sara and I launched my business a little over a month ago because I wanted to utilize my skills, combine all my passions and goals, and work with business owners worldwide. And when my husband and I found out that we're expecting, it felt like the right thing to do to be able to combine both - working and being a mom.

As a former NCAA D1 athlete and an MBA-er with multilingual communication skills and international experience, I believe I have a unique skillset to offer to small and medium size business owners and professionals. While still searching for my niche, I am offering marketing, business development, admin, HR and some other services. My website is still a work in progress since it doesn't feel quite right yet. I will greatly appreciate any feedback and advice on it.

As a newbie, it feels that finding clients is the trickiest part. Again, any advice is welcomed. I am on Elance, on VA forums and am getting involved in my community. In addition, I am available for subcontracting as well.

Thank you all again and the best of luck

Best,

Sara

Welcome to the VAF Sara! Congrats on launching two new ventures, business owner and parent!

I'm glad you found us and that the information you have found has been helpful. You are absolutely correct in saying that finding clients is the hardest part of starting out. I launched in August and am still searching for that first client. It takes times and while I am working on finding that client I have the time to learn new skills, enhance known skills, and write (which I love to do whenever I can).

It looks like we don't live too far from each other as I live just over the Mohawk River from Schenectady. Good luck and I wish you great success!

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Margaret

Hi Sara - and welcome!

You are in the right place for advice and such. If you want to provide detailed information about offering your services there is a special forum section for that, so that you can elaborate and give people a much better idea of what you are looking for.

Getting involved in your community is a great thing to do. Will help you make connections. My personal once piece of advice is to remember that from this moment on you are a small business owner, and you need to make sure that all of your interactions represent you as that...because the most important way to get clients is to build the right kind of relationships. Marketing and sales these days are much more relationship based than sales based. It's becoming more and more prominent. So get involved in local networking groups, meetups, and perhaps join your local chamber when you can. Have your marketing attack planned in advance, and know the networking skills you need, and you will do great! I can tell already that you have the right mindset and attitude.

One warning - take caution with Elance. Read more about it on these forums. Best of luck! I'm very excited for you and your new ventures!

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Pam Blackman - Pam Blackman Online
Online Marketing Consulting & Project Management

You will find advice all over VAF to help you set up your business and market it. We're glad you found us!

Margaret, Pam and Lily,

Thank you for your words of advice! Yes, I getting clients indeed takes a much patience as it does relationship building:-) Pam, I saw several comments about Elance as well as about Odesk, so I am taking some caution.

Welcome Sara! Congratulations on the launch of your business and your upcoming arrival!
You will find so much useful information here, its amazing.
Good luck on your very busy future, and look forward to 'seeing' you here

Hello Sara! Congrats on the new business and the little bundle of joy your expecting! I am new to this site and have found it to be such a great resource. There are so many informational threads on here. I have yet to be able to look through a lot of them. Anyways, happy to have you on here!

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Angie Fisher
Modern Day Admin